Matthew d'Ancona: At last Ed Miliband is a leader to be reckoned with

Unlike his predecessors, Labour’s current head is at ease with the unions and is thus well placed to reform them

Wednesday 10 July 2013 13:16 BST

Grasp the nettle: Ed Miliband delivering his speech on reforming the union link in London yesterday PA

Like Ivan Lendl praising Andy Murray for winning the tournament that always eluded him, Tony Blair hailed Ed Miliband’s speech yesterday as the launch of “a process of reform in the Labour Party that is long overdue and, frankly, probably I should have done it when I was leader”. This was the best moment in one of the Labour leader’s best days to date.

For a start, the former Prime Minister’s intervention pre-empted any serious critique from the Blairite wing of the party. None of Blair’s apostles could plausibly attack Miliband for doing too little too late once the man whom David Cameron and George Osborne call “the Master” had spoken in Ed’s favour.

And this was praise indeed from the great moderniser. Read John Rentoul’s newly updated (and still definitive) biography of Blair: one is reminded that the reform of the link between the unions and the Labour was the cause, along with law and order, that defined him as the party’s leader-in-waiting between 1992 and 1994. “We have block votes determining everything,” he said. “That’s all got to go.”

Yet Prime Minister Blair left much unfinished business as a party reformer. In one of the crisp ironies that shape politics, the completion of the task has fallen to the man who became leader precisely by disowning the Blairite past. In reaction to the Falkirk scandal, and to end the “politics of the machine”, Miliband has put forward a shopping-list of proposals — at the top of which is his insistence that union members only pay a political levy to the party if they have made an active decision to do so. “Individual trade union members should choose to join Labour through the affiliation fee, not be automatically affiliated,” he said. “In the 21st century, it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have chosen to do so.”

The gap between talk and action is, of course, considerable — especially where the taming of the unions is concerned. Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, welcomed the speech as “visionary”. Yet in yesterday’s Guardian he declared categorically that “switching to an ‘opt-in’ for the political levy wouldn’t work — it would require Labour to unite with the Tories to change the law, would debilitate unions’ ability to speak for our members and would further undermine unions’ status as voluntary, and self-governing, organisations”. So which is it, Mr McCluskey? “Visionary” or “debilitating”? One explanation — in brief — is as follows: that the new opt-in will not affect the amount of money members pay to their unions’ political coffers, only the sum that goes directly to Labour as an affiliation fee. In other words: union barons like McCluskey could have more cash at their disposal for bespoke political campaigns. This needs to be clarified, and fast.

Yet the over-arching point is this: what Miliband proposes is democratic in spirit and gutsy in content. As anyone with an interest in behavioural economics can tell you, the difference between an “opt-in” and an “opt-out” is huge. Organ donor schemes that require an opt-out — “No, I do not wish to help someone after my death” — are much more successful than those which depend upon an active opt-in. The Behavioural Insights Team (or “Nudge Unit”) at the Cabinet Office, headed by Dr David Halpern, addresses itself daily to such distinctions and the ways in which they affect public policy.

The same psychological reasoning underpins what Miliband proposes. He is jeopardising his party’s most reliable income stream. Yet he is also cleansing it of its historic stain. An “opt-in” system treats union members as fully formed political beings, emancipating them from the old collectivist structures of affiliation. The only objection that may reasonably be raised to this is that it should have been done years ago. But, for that, Miliband is no more to blame than Gordon Brown, Blair or John Smith.

His proposal for US-style primaries in the selection of a London mayoral candidate — and perhaps elsewhere — puts the modernising ball firmly in the Conservative court. So too does his criticism of MPs taking second jobs. It is hard to lead the lifestyle of a Notting Hill Tory on an MP’s salary: hence, all the “consultancies”, advisory roles and top-up work taken on as quietly as possible by MPs of all parties, but especially Conservatives. This was a sly and effective dig by the Labour leader.

As a rule, I dislike the “Nixon in China” cliché but on this occasion I shall cautiously “opt in” to its use. It may well be that only Miliband — who won the leadership because of the unions — could reform the link between them and the party. Blair’s relationship with the union movement was openly scornful on both sides: he longed to transform Labour into a Continental social democratic party, perhaps severing entirely its connection with the unions. But Miliband is entirely at ease with that bond, and with the party’s historic role as — among other things — the parliamentary wing of organised labour. Precisely because he supports that role, he wants it to survive and remain defensible in the radically changed economic, social and political landscape of the early 21st century. For that to happen, transformative change is required: no more Falkirks, naturally, but also no more Labour leaders effectively chosen by three or four union leaders.

The risk Miliband takes is that the implementation of these reforms will form an embarrassingly fractious backdrop to everything else he does between now and the general election in 22 months. If it works, his claim to be the enemy of cartels and of vested interests will be burnished; if he falters, the Tories will cry, ever louder: “weak, weak, weak”. The economy is showing signs of recovery; Abu Qatada has gone; the Tories even had a moment of unity on Europe last week in the vote on the EU referendum; and a Briton is Wimbledon champion. A good week for Cameron? Absolutely. But for Miliband, a definitive one.